Angels! Page 7

  Not that it was anything like a woman. It had no sex. Just a smooth, neat, dainty body. It smiled at me and uttered a single silver-tone.

  The world around me became peculiar and far off. Only the angel seemed real. It was solid as crystal. Every detail of feathers, arms, face, shone clear and bright. Myself, I felt like a ghost shaking in the wind.

  As if it understood my feelings, the angel cooed softly. Next thing I knew, it was perched on my shoulder, pressing up against my cheek.

  The minute it touched me, I felt better. The shock faded out of me. The angel couldn't have weighed over a couple of ounces and it felt resilient and warm. It felt completely right sitting there.

  "Comfortable?" I asked, turning my head.

  Murmuring dainty sounds floated from it. One little hand touched my face. It didn't say words, then or later. The angels got along on musical sounds. And touches. Their touch explained more than words.

  Dad was standing in the road, face an absolute blank. On each shoulder rode an angel. All around Win, angels wheeled, patting his bald head and trilling.

  "Why, ain't these cute!" he yelled, reached out a hand. An angel swooped down on his fingers and let its bright wings trail.

  By then, hundreds of angels swirled around us, reached out to touch, their golden eyes wide, as if we were something they had always heard about but never expected to see. Their wings made the sound of crushing tissue paper.

  Sometime later, surrounded by angels, we splashed back to the house.

  Mom was outside, pouring pellets into the dog dish. When she saw us, her mouth came open. She dropped the sack and grabbed for the door.

  "Sam Williamson," she shouted, "don't you bring those things in here!"

  Two or three angels swooped to pat her face and hair, and marvel at the way she talked, and cuddle on her shoulders.

  "Why, aren't they dear?" she said. "Ellen! Ellen, come out here and look."

  I saw Aunt Ellen glaring from inside the screen door. "Birds," she cried, her voice sharp with disgust. "Get in this house, Virginia Ann. They carry disease."

  "They're not birds," Mom said. She opened the screen.

  Ellen squealed once as the doorway turned white with wings. When her face reappeared, we could see the peevishness and fright leaving her.

  "They're little people," she said. "Aren't they lovely?"

  We all crowded into the kitchen. It was a busy place. Across the ceiling wheeled dozens of angels, darting, touching, staring, trilling. The five of us stared at each other.

  "Where did these come from, Sam?" Mom asked.

  So Dad had to tell about the rock wall and the dynamite.

  By the look on Mom's face, she had strong feelings about dynamite and was inclined to talk about them. Before she got started, an angel pressed its minute fingers against her mouth.

  Wide-eyed amazement caught Mom's face. Instead of scolding, she looked gently concerned, said: "Sam, you know that's dangerous."

  "Now, honey," Dad said. "I didn't want to worry you."

  They fell to hugging each other in a surprising way for mid-morning.

  Uncle Win glanced sideways at them and cleared his throat. He said: "Lemme get the mop. I'll just clean me some mud off this floor."

  I saw we'd brought a lot of field into the kitchen. So I slipped off my shoes, and collected Dad's and Win's, intending to scrape them off outside. I was at the door, when angels began bobbing

  and chiming, all excited, around the kitchen table. Their white arms waved toward the cards scattered there. They might have been pointing out snakes.

  Dad stared from cards to angels. Finally he gave a big sigh. "Well, I guess . . .

  He tossed the cards into the wastebasket. That pleased the angels. They flocked all over him, cooing and flapping, caressing his hair.

  I went outside and cleaned shoes. When I stepped back into the kitchen, Uncle Win had finished mopping the floor. Dad was at the sink washing dishes, which I'd heard him swear he'd never do, no, sir, not ever in this life.

  In the living room, Mom was on the telephone. Half a dozen angels sang at her. More glided around inspecting the room.

  Mom said: "Reverend James. This is Mrs. Williamson. I want you to come right over. It's the most wonderful thing. . . .

  Aunt Ellen caught at my arm. "Now would you look at this," she said.

  A wall of angels fluttered between us and the television. Their backs were to the tube; their little hands gestured us away. They made a nervous chittering sound, like hens watching a hawk.

  "They don't like TV," Aunt Ellen said. "It's the Spin for a Million show, too."

  "Change channels," I suggested.

  "I did. They don't like anything."

  She fretted, working her mouth. Finally she reached among the vibrating wings to punch the screen off. "I wouldn't want to upset the poor things."

  The angels seemed delighted. After the menace of television ended, a swirl of them spun around her, making a sugary murmur. Others floated about the room, fingering the curtains and probing the ceiling corners. On the coffee table, a pair rustled through the magazines, shoving all the hunting issues onto the floor.

  Along the wall, half a dozen angels inspected Mom's collection of family photographs. After a while, they broke into an indignant belling. Two of them got hold of Aunt Fay's photograph—the one where she looks so blond and racy—and twisted it to face the wall.

  Aunt Ellen looked at me. "You know," she said, "I always wondered about Fay."

  I thought we might get awful tired of angels in judgment. But I said: "Guess I might go try the calculus again."

  "You just do that," Ellen said. She sounded vaguely elated. "Believe I'll just sew up some potholders for the church."

  That overjoyed the angels. As they chirped around Ellen, I went in back and opened the book. Angels clustered around to see if they could help. After the second problem, they gave it up and sat around purring sympathetically.

  Before I worked half a page, a car door slammed out front. Looking out the window, I saw the Reverend James of the United Holiness Congregation hurrying toward the house.

  The Reverend was short and heavy. Fighting sin had dragged down the corners of his mouth and eyes and bent his head. He moved like a man carrying too many rocks.

  His full voice said: "Sister Williamson, it's a joy and a blessing to see you

  At the way his voice cut off, I judged he'd got a good look at the angels.

  "What on earth?" he barked.

  Mom said: "They're just angels, Reverend. You come right in."

  I closed up the calculus and drifted out to the kitchen. It wasn't every day I could see a minister face to face with the stuff of sermons.

  He stood in the kitchen, looking as edgy as a man with a snake in his pocket. "But they're tiny!" he boomed.

  "I guess an angel can be any size it wants," Mom told him.

  "Can't be angels." He jerked off his hat and waved it at them. That amused the angels. They flittered around his head, making tiny joyous sounds.

  "The Holy Scriptures say—" he began, trying to shake himself and talk at the same time.

  Whatever the Holy Scriptures had to say, it was lost as the angels' touch took effect. His face lightened and some of his deeper wrinkles smoothed out.

  "God's mercy," he gasped. "It's a miracle."

  "Aren't they sweet?" Mom asked.

  "Under the circumstances," he said, "I think we might join together in prayer."

  I caught an un-Christian flash in Dad's eyes. Reverend James' prayers were more like novels than short stories, and they tended to get louder as they got longer.

  I grinned to myself. And the Reverend prayed.

  All the angels settled down to listen, their wings folded respectfully, their little hands closed. Now and then a wing jerked to a more comfortable position. Their bare feet rubbed together.

  The Reverend started with our family and he prayed for each of us until you wondered when we'd had time to get
that sinful. Then he discussed the angels, the solar system, the mystery of the universe, and the Inscrutable Will. He didn't leave much out. Before he finished, I noticed a lot of wing folding and foot twisting. The angels seemed used to less comprehensive prayers.

  When he finally thundered, "Amen!" angels shot into the air to whirl crazily around the kitchen, belling and chiming, making a golden racket.

  "Dare I hope," the Reverend said to Mom, "dare I hope that they will join us in church in demonstration of the Infinite Glory of God?"

  "I should think so," she said.

  As he drove off, a cloud of angels traveled with him, floating above his automobile. Even after he was out of sight, we could track the car by the flock dipping and wheeling and moving slowly off through the trees.

  Dad laughed. "Gonna be some surprised people come Sunday." As it worked out, some people were amazed before then.

  Long before supper time, Mom got to worrying about what she could feed the angels.

  "They eat manna," I said.

  She said thoughtfully: "I should have asked Reverend James. I'm not that sure about manna."

  "It looks like goldfish food," I said. "White and sort of thin and sweet."

  "Maybe I can make some little cakes," she said, sidestepping as Dad slouched into the kitchen.

  He was smiling as if a tooth hurt. One hand clutched his pipe and tobacco. On his shoulders rode a pair of angels, hiding their faces and making a dismal low moaning.

  In a forced voice, he said, "Guess I think I'll give up smoking." He banged open a drawer, slammed in pipe and tobacco, and whacked the drawer shut.

  "I'm proud of you," Mom said. "You should of quit years ago." "I suppose so," Dad said glumly. The angels took their faces out of their hands to make sparkling little sounds.

  Mom said to me: "Jack, you better go down to the store. I need some good flour."

  "I'll see if they got any manna," I said.

  "Get me some chewing gum," Dad growled.

  Which is why I walked into Doc Steeger's One Stop at five-thirty, wearing an angel on each shoulder.

  To tell the truth, I wasn't that eager to walk in decorated with angels. It was sure to draw lip from Buddy, Doc's son. Buddy is a red-faced lump of fat with curly black hair and a mouth that never quits.

  I figured that when I couldn't stand his cracks anymore, I'd lean over and quick bump him with my fist before the angels made me love him. But that wasn't necessary. Angels had arrived at the One Stop before me.

  A swarm of them floated around that big old store, playing tag with the four-bladed ceiling fan. More fluttered along the top shelves, inspecting cereal boxes. In the hardware section, wings flashed among the churns and tin tubs.

  Doc himself was busy taping a sheet of butcher paper across the beer coolers. On the paper he'd printed SECTION CLOSED. When he saw me, he called: "Don't sell beer no more, Jack," as if I never came in for anything else.

  I told him no beer was needed and moved to the counter. Buddy slouched there, as greasy and sulky as ever. Angels loaded him down.

  "You, too?" he asked, looking at my angels.

  "Uh-huh."

  "Well, I tell you this, Williamson," he snapped. He stopped, swallowed, glowered, said: "You and me, we've had our differences. But I want to tell you, I forgive you. I don't hold no hard feelings and hope you feel the same."

  His eyes said he'd like to bend my neck.

  I grinned into his fat face. "That's mighty Christian, Buddy. I'm glad you've quit being such a worthless, no-good pain—"

  Three angels dropped between us, lamenting and fluttering pitifully. The angel on my left shoulder placed an arm over my mouth. It made a fading, weeping sound.

  "Oh, shoot," I said. "I guess I feel the same way."

  "It's no use," Buddy said. "I've tried. They don't let you be natural."

  I decided not to tell him that when he was natural, he was disgusting. Instead I gave him Mom's order. He waddled off, accompanied by a covey of angels, fluttering up and down the shelves. Their wings blew out an astonishing amount of dust.

  While I was sitting on the counter, keeping quiet, the Mayor's wife, Amelia Stevens, trotted in. As usual, she wore a pound of powder and a ton of Indian jewelry. She was enjoying her share of angels, too.

  Marching up to Doc, she asked: "You got any Bibles, Mr. Steeger?"

  "Well, no," he said, coming away from the beer cooler. "I'm ordering a gross tomorrow."

  "I need one tonight," she said. "It's for the Mayor."

  I saw Doc's eyebrows reach for his hair. "The Mayor?"

  "I guess we've misplaced our Bible," she said, looking as if she had borrowed someone else's smile. "The Mayor wants to read about angels."

  I thought it more likely he wanted to check the description of Hell. But I had enough sense to keep quiet. I slipped off home with the groceries and told Dad that the Mayor couldn't find his Bible. "Burn the fingers off him to touch it," Dad said.

  That remark set the angels lamenting and looking sad. Dad swallowed and put on an unreal smile. "I tell you, Jack," he sighed, "this living a blameless life is hard."

  He was right. Over the next few days, the effort to live blamelessly took a lot out of us. Some of us gave up beer. All of us gave up second helpings at dinner. The angels didn't eat that much, being content with five or six crumbs from Mom's cakes. I thought small flying creatures ate their own weight every day; but not these.

  Since television upset the angels, we spent evenings sitting around in clean clothes, telling each other how good we felt, how glad we were to live in a state of grace.

  The cards stayed in the wastebasket and the tobacco in the kitchen drawer. Uncle Win and Dad chewed about eleven packs of gum between them. I read calculus till I almost believed it. It was Sunday all week.

  Now and then, when the silence grew terrible, the angels sang in chorus. They never sang anything that I knew. They favored slow chants, soft and remote, sounding like gold and silver sheets shimmering through each other. Bursts of trills fell across that sound like dashes of rain. It was delicate, very lovely. But by the time you went to bed, you felt you'd spent the whole night crying.

  "You figure this is all they do in Heaven?" Uncle Win asked. He had been slouched down in the chair for an hour, staring at the backs of his hands.

  I said: "I've been thinking about that. You know, when it comes down to it, they don't have to be from Heaven. They don't even have to be angels."

  Dad rolled his eyes toward the kitchen. "Your mother hear that, she'd set you straight in a hurry."

  "I read something once," I said. "About parallel universes. If there gets to be a hole between them, you could cross right over. See the angels could be from another dimension. Maybe another star."

  Dad sniffed. "You' ve been reading those magazines. They make you think funny."

  "Besides," I added, "the angels don't even understand English. They just react to voice tones."

  Uncle Win looked as blank as if he'd been erased and Dad snorted and grinned. "Well, look here," I said, picking up an angel. After making sure that Aunt Ellen and Mom were in the kitchen, I addressed the angel in a loving, respectful voice, using some of the words I'd learned while defending the Free World. Given the right tone, they were exactly the right words for describing officers or removing scale from metal.

  "Merciful salvation," Dad said sharply. "Sounds like you were brought up behind a mule."

  The angel, which had been playing contentedly with my fingers, went stiff at the sound of his voice. It wailed dolefully.

  "Good grief," he said.

  "See," I told him, "It's all in the voice."

  "Well, I'll be damned," Uncle Win said, gentle-voiced. When the angel didn't respond to that, Win grinned all over. Lifting out of his chair, he hurried off to practice his art on other angels.

  Dad shook his head. "I don't want to hear such talk. I brought you up better than that. Angels probably don't speak English in Heaven. Old Testament, likel
y."

  I was feeling ashamed that I had deceived the angel, so I stroked its back with a finger, making it arc its wings in pleasure. I said: "They may look like angels. But I bet they're extraterrestrials."

  "You let the women hear you," Dad said, "and there'll be war."

  But I noticed elation in his eyes. I suspect he was thinking more about his pipe than angelic origins.

  The next morning, Saturday, Dad rose from the breakfast table and said: "I'm going to Twin Tree. Want to see about a fan belt." "I'll come along and help," I said.

  Fifteen or twenty angels seemed interested in fan belts, too. No sooner did they get outside, away from the choral society, than they exploded straight up into the sky. We stood watching them roll and tumble and spread their arms to plunge headlong through the sunlight. They were winged creatures, after all. And wings like to fly. Not sit in a narrow house, harmonizing in five sharps and two intervals.

  "Happy," I said, squinting up at them.

  "So'm I," Dad said.

  I realized then that, for the first time in days, neither one of us had an angel perched on him.

  "We get back home," Dad said, "I'm going to open me a beer, angels or not. Being good's dry work."

  "We can get us a couple in town," I said.

  If I were paid for predicting, I wouldn't have made a cent. The two taverns in town were shut tight, blinds drawn, lights out. On Saturday morning, yet.

  The one place in town doing big business was the United Holiness Congregational church. Cars and trucks, all bright with polish, jammed the parking lot. From the open doors surged singing. It wasn't as sweet as angel music, but it was enthusiastic.

  Dad listened without unusual excitement. "I always sort of liked Willie Nelson," he remarked. And didn't say a thing more till we parked at Blackwort's Transportation City.

  Blackwort's huge sign that usually flashed CRAZY DEALS in three colors was dark. Dad vanished through the open door. I stayed outside, enjoying the sun.

  The air smelled softly sweet, like washed leaves. The sky glowed transparent blue, smooth and rich as glaze. I felt light and mildly foolish. Off over the center of town, a flock of angels drifted in a sleepy shifting spiral.